RCA Kills Long-Running Pop Labels Arista and Jive

Despite the news yesterday that album sales are up over last year, it looks like the ongoing music-industry apocalypse is still in full swing. The Hollywood Reporterreveals that RCA is folding two long-running labels that have represented some of the biggest pop stars of the past four decades. Arista, which was founded by Clive Davis in 1974, and Jive, launched three years later by Clive Calder and helmed by Barry Weis since 1991, will both be shuttered, and their artists funneled to RCA Records. According to RCA execs, the move is a branding decision: “The concept is that there is value in branding RCA and not having it confused or diluted by other labels,” RCA president Tom Corson told THR. Although Arista only represented a handful of big names (Jennifer Hudson, Santana, Whitney Houston), Jive — the label that was largely responsible for the turn-of-the-millennium teen-pop boom — still boasts an enormous roster ranging from Pitbull and Rick Ross to Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake. A full list of artists currently on each label is after the jump.